A conference on financing the African Union’s peace efforts will be held in Paris by the end of this year, French President Emmanuel Macron said on Wednesday while on a visit to Ethiopia.
Macron has been in Africa on a five-day visit this week, including for a two-day economic summit in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.
On Wednesday, he met Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed in Addis Ababa, before holding informal talks with AU chairman Mahamoud Ali Youssouf and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
Macron, on his first visit to the AU headquarters, said France believes that “African problems must first and foremost be resolved and coordinated by Africa, and that the legitimate body is the African Union”.
“An international conference to raise additional funds and mobilise new public and private partners” for the African Union Peace Fund will be organised “in the last quarter of this year in Paris,” he added.
The fund, set up in 1993 by the AU’s predecessor, the Organisation of African Unity, is reliant on contributions from AU member states, the private sector and individuals.
It was blocked for two decades until 2018, and some $400 million was raised in 2024.
Macron also called for the effective implementation of UN Resolution 2719, which was adopted in 2023 and provides for mandatory contributions from United Nations member states to finance AU peace operations.
During his Africa tour, the French head of state said he wanted the AU to have “more capacity” for peacekeeping operations and to “build its own mediation efforts”.
Macron, who reaffirmed his support for permanent seats for Africa on the UN Security Council, said he planned to raise mediation efforts in the conflict-hit Democratic Republic of Congo with the UN and AU.
Kenya’s President William Ruto has been invited to represent Africa at next month’s G7 meeting in France, he said, adding that Paris would also assist Africa in the fallout from the US-Israeli war against Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
“The entire global economy is obviously affected by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, but the African continent particularly so,” Macron said, without elaborating on the initiative.
